Another Port official sails into the private sector

Erik Horvat, the director of World Trade Center redevelopment at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, has joined China-based Fosun International, where he will help it establish a platform to invest in real estate and manage its operations here.

Yet another young executive at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is departing the agency for a prominent job in the real estate industry. The latest is Erik Horvat, the director of World Trade Center redevelopment at the Port. He is joining the Chinese conglomerate Fosun International, where he will help it establish a platform to invest in New York City real estate and manage its operations here.

Fosun made a big entry into the city last year when it acquired the downtown office tower One Chase Manhattan Plaza for $725 million. Renovating and leasing up that 60-story, roughly 2.2 million-square-foot building will be Mr. Horvat's first assignment.

"I'll be tasked with repositioning that asset and growing their business here," Mr. Horvat, who is 42, said. "This is a huge opportunity for me to be part of a company that is going to be very significant here."

Mr. Horvat is the latest in a string of departures from the Port as its biggest development project, the World Trade Center site, continues to wind down. The experience of having worked on such an immense project while at the Port has served this pack of departing executives well in their migration to the private sector.

Philippe Visser, a Crain's40 Under 40 this year, left the Port last year to become a top executive at the Related Cos., where he is managing the construction of 30 Hudson Yards, the biggest tower at that $18 billion West Side development.

Richard Gladstone, another former Port staffer who helped manage the World Trade Center's rebuilding, left the agency late last year to take a senior role managing development projects at the large downtown landlord Trinity Real Estate.

Mr. Horvat worked closely with Mr. Visser during his time at the Port, and helped arrange some of the key transactions at the Trade center site. Those include the sale of its 400,000 square feet of below-ground retail to Westfield for more than $1 billion and a more than $800 million deal to lease the top of 1 World Trade Center to Legends, a sports venue management company that won the right to build and operate the tower's observation deck.

Mr. Horvat said he plans to build Fosun's office here in the coming months.

"They want to form an organization based in the city," Mr. Horvat said. "From acquisitions to property management."

Mr. Horvat's leading role in selling the WTC's retail space demonstrated a skill that Fosun would like to tap for its new acquisitions. One Chase Manhattan Plaza has hundreds of thousands of square feet of below-ground retail space that Fosun will need to fill in order to make its big investment a success.

"It's a special skill set to be able to understand subterranean malls and that became a key credential for me in getting this opportunity," Mr. Horvat said.